


no soul ever will

by dhils



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhils/pseuds/dhils
Summary: He meets Alex Pietrangelo and everything he’s ever taught himself unravels.





	no soul ever will

**Author's Note:**

> in other news: playoff hockey is a disaster

Colton finds joys in all the little things in life. He’s a simple kid, entertained by the ballroom two-step of curtains as the summer breeze sways them to a gentle beat, entertained by the clouds that pass his window in soft puffs of white, entertained by the rabbit that chews at a piece of grass further down the lawn.

Between Colton and the rest of his world stands nothing but his will to explore it. Dad said he’d pull together a makeshift rink in the backyard this year, told him he’d buy him a brand new pair of skates, and said, “kiddo, if I could drive you up north so you could play hockey outdoors, I would.” 

Still, Colton loves the summer. It means indoor hockey, it means sunburns, and it means mosquitos out after dusk, but he puts on a smile and lets the heat steal the air from his lungs.

 

 

It’s funny, actually. 

When Colton spends the winters bundled up under layers and layers, skating circles in a rink while the snow lands on his tuque. He’s cold and his cheeks are pinched pink, nothing about it is warm until he’s bullied underneath a blanket and given hot chocolate to warm him up from the inside out.

But in the summers, he’ll run around the neighbourhood with his friends and stay out until the streetlights come on, until the quiet music of night bugs touches his ears. 

Colton has never loved anything more than he loves the summer. 

 

 

When he is barely ten, he picks up baseball. 

Because baseball sparks to life when hockey dies, when he’s left wondering what more to do with himself—late in the spring time. 

He grabs a bat and steps out onto a field still soggy from last night’s rainstorm and works at swinging and swinging and swinging. And. He is no good, not yet, but he’s got spirit, that’s what his brother says. 

But Colton is young and does not care much for criticism. 

So, he plays baseball. He smiles up at the skies, sprawls out against bright green grass, and gets lathered in enough sunscreen for the smell to be engrained into his senses. 

 

 

Fall rolls around and Colton realizes, very quickly, that he is going to stick to hockey.

 

 

One summer, he sits out on the curb and licks at an ice cream cone that has all but dripped out onto his fingers. It’s gross and sticky and still, it’s something he only ever gets to experience in the summer. 

He’s got a bandaid on his knee after falling off his bike and it still hurts, but the chocolate on his tongue soothes the pain. It helps him forget the stinging, helps him to keep from thinking about the way the skin had been scraped raw against concrete, pink and vicious. 

Colton hadn’t cried. Because his friends had been watching and if he cried then, he’d never live it down. 

So, he watches a drop roll down the cone and tries chasing it with his tongue. He eats his ice cream, he tries shielding it from the sun with his other hand, and he doesn’t think about how much his knee hurts. Because if he ignores it, maybe his eyes won’t prickle as much.

 

 

Colton hates the way the winter air in Alberta gets cold enough that it burns. 

For the longest time, he’s only walked out of the house stuffed in the thickest jacket he owns in December and kept it up until March. When the snow melts and his breaths come out a little easier. 

When he’s thirteen, he leaves his jacket in his locker while rushing to hockey practice and has to walk home with his teeth chattering and a head full of nothing but scornful thoughts.

When he’s fourteen, a blizzard with enough force to snow his family into their house hits. The driveway is buried underneath what looks like a foot of snow and his mother does not let him leave the house

When he’s fifteen, it snows in October and the trees go bare too, too quickly.

Maybe it’s that the winter does not love Colton like Colton wants to love it. 

That’s the first time he realizes that love is a tricky little thing. Something that takes time and patience, something to nurture, and Colton has slipped on the ice enough to know he wants no part of it. 

 

 

Hockey proves to be the only good thing that comes alongside winter. When he stops making snow angels and snowmen, when he no longer catches snowflakes on his tongue or draws smiley faces in the fog on the windows. 

When Colton decides he’s growing up, hockey becomes a focal point, becomes something that he shuts himself into. It’s not just a sport anymore, suddenly. 

He’s old enough to realize, when he starts looking at one of his teammates for too long, when his stomach flips when he sees him, when he watches his lips while they speak, that he’s losing focus. 

Colton says, “do you ever think about boys,” and he regrets it immediately, because it feels like the wrong thing to say. The worst time to bring it up.

Something crystallizes over his teammate’s face. Something like confusion. And he shakes his head, slow. “Like, you mean—“ 

Colton doesn’t want him to finish that sentence, so he says, “no, it’s. Never mind. Can you forget I said anything?”

He does, hesitantly, but he forgets. They both do.

 

 

It’s not exactly forgetting as much as it is stepping on intrusive thoughts, thoughts that seem to float in out of nowhere. 

It’s not forgetting as much as it is silencing. But it’s fine.

However many years ago, Colton remembers figuring out how to hate his feelings, hate emotions that aren’t happy, sunny, and bright. 

He could let it out, that angry part of him that begs to be filled by something other than what makes him content. That part that screams with each painful check he’s received on the ice, each championship he’s lost over the years, each time he‘s overheard words that seep poison into his skin.

Colton squeezes his eyes shut and breathes out a silent scream, one that drains everything from him, and he knows better than to let it get any further.

 

 

Colton gets drafted in the summer. He goes back to university in the summer. He plays for three years and graduates in the summer.

Colton gets called up to the St. Louis Blues and the sun is shining and the grass is green and everything will be okay.

 

 

From the stories Colton has heard, training camp isn’t something he needs to be particularly nervous about. It’s hockey, it’s his game, but in a league where he’s got everything to prove. A league little boys all across the country dream to play in.

Colton was that boy once, weighed down by the stick in his hands and the love for his sport. 

He still is, he thinks, he still is that boy. 

 

 

He meets Alex Pietrangelo and everything he’s ever taught himself unravels. 

 

 

Alex wears an ‘A’ on his chest and a quiet smile on his lips. He’s got these soft hands on the ice and Colton wonders, absently, if they’re just as soft off the ice. 

Alex says, “hey, man,” with this little wave the second time they see each other in the locker room. 

“What’s up,” Colton answers, and tries to be natural with his smile. It’s hard when his hands are trembling and that quiet part of him he’s tucked away for years is finally stirring. 

 

 

The hockey gets harder, the players get tougher, and the puck seems to get smaller. Each check is delivered with a devastating finish, each word spit at the circle buzzing with feral undertones. 

Colton hears things that make his gut twist and he’s heard it all before, but somehow it’s worse when it’s coming from the mouths of guys he’s watched on TV, guys he’s thought to look up to. 

Nobody tells you that making the show comes with a heavy feeling in your stomach or that pinch of your heart in your ribs.

He doesn’t cry because he is no longer a child, no longer a kid with a scraped knee and tears barely held behind his eyelids. 

But he does think about it for longer than he should. He does until each word is regurgitated, until feeling better comes with sniping words that drip with anger at someone else. Until it’s not scoring a goal that feels good, but the fact that a point for us is one to get under their skin.

 

 

Colton bleeds with the need to belong and Alex acts like they’ve known each other their entire lives, like Colton has been friends with him for years.

He wishes it had been like that, although he wouldn’t trust himself still to keep from catching feelings. Because Colton has not once prided himself for his willpower.

With the Blues, he slots into place. 

With Alex, his heart beats hard enough to leave bruises on his ribs. And Colton’s terrified of many things, but the thought that this could be real is intense and fierce in the back of his head. 

He never learned how to say he’s scared.

 

 

The clouds roll through a solid blue sky and Colton swears nothing feels right until the world is peaceful like this. Until the wind carries a warmth that is only familiar to the summer and he can step outside just to be kissed by the breeze. 

He can still feel the blood spilled by San Jose drying on his skin, a conference final loss that smarts something furious. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Like touching a hot stove and feeling the flicker of pain still radiating underneath his fingers, minutes after the moment has long but passed. 

Alex puts a hand on his shoulder and when Colton catches his eyes there’s something unreadable drawn over his expression, but he’s looking at Colton like that was their first chance of many. Together. 

“This sucks,” Colton says, quiet.

“It does.” 

There aren’t very many words between them, but Colton feels himself fall apart when he’s pulled into Alex’s arms. 

He does not cry. 

 

 

Late at night, in a hotel somewhere in San Jose, Colton feels cold and empty and his fingers dial up his mother’s number. 

Thousands of miles away, she says, “Hi, honey,” sugar-sweet. 

Thousands of miles away, there’s a soft purr from her cat into the speaker. 

Thousands of miles away, she watched the game and knows exactly what Colton wants to say. The words he won’t let himself say, words that make him vulnerable, that paint him as weak, that he knows not to spill.

Colton says, “you saw the game?” 

When she hums in response and says, “you were wonderful,” he feels like this could be the moment he breaks. 

 

 

Late at night, in a hotel somewhere in San Jose, Colton thinks about everything he could’ve done differently. Everything he could’ve done right. Everything he’s made difficult just to push through, things that have left fading scars across his life. 

He cries, sitting on the bathroom floor with the shower running. He buries his head in his hands and chokes on regret. 

 

 

Colton doesn’t spend the summer with Alex. He says his goodbyes and meets the eyes of his teammate’s with open wounds and easy smiles. 

He spends too long with his arms tight around Alex. Just as he’s spent too long with his thoughts lingering on the way Alex’s expression goes soft when they’re together, how he’d told Colton one night that this is their year, how Alex can sand off all his jagged edges to be a captain. 

If Colton can’t meet his eyes, he doesn’t say a thing about it. 

He wishes he could leave it like that.

 

 

His phone is full of texts between the two of them. Texts sent from across the continent, where Colton’s gone back to his childhood home and Alex is reconnecting with old friends on sandy beaches. 

He sends him a picture of his mother’s chocolate chip cookies and types, _only reason i’m not missing hockey_

And it is. 

The summer means Colton can breathe. It means no worries, or stress, or ruthless flights to nameless cities. 

Though, it does mean Alex is somewhere distant. Which—it shouldn’t be the last thought in his head every night. Not when he’s alone with the melody of crickets chirping outside his window, the same one he’d be oh-so-fascinated by as a child. But.

His phone buzzes and he can barely resist the urge to check it.

 

 

Colton tells himself this is the summer he’ll tell his mother. This is the summer he can finally let it come out, he repeats it to himself until he believes it enough to speak it. 

She puts a plate of pancakes in front of him, kisses the top of his head, and tells him she loves him.

The words die in his throat. 

 

 

“Hi,” Alex says. 

It’s been a long summer. There are freckles on his shoulders and his skin is golden like it’s awash in sunlight. 

Colton missed him. Colton missed him so, so much. 

“I missed you,” he says.

Alex smiles. 

 

 

Colton has never been in love with someone. He doesn’t know what it feels like. He doesn’t know if the way his throat tightens or his heart shivers is any more of a side effect than the rush of blood to his head, but he thinks he can get away with blaming it on the summer.

If he stretches the feelings to when the snow melts and the air warms, he can say as much. 

In hindsight, he should’ve seen it coming. 

 

 

The season ends. The days get longer. It is not their year. 

Everyday, Alex calls Colton and they talk about—nothing, really. Over and over. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Until Colton says, “I think I’m in love,” and it’s the most difficult it has ever been to say something, feels like a weight as it rolls off his tongue. 

For a minute, there’s nothing but silence. And Alex’s voice is quiet through the phone when he finally speaks, but unmistakably kind. “You think?” 

Colton swallows, hard. “Yeah. I think.”

“Oh.” Alex inhales. “I think—you should come to Ontario.”

 

 

Colton loves the summers in Ontario. It could be because of the rain, or the bustle of big cities, or the carnivals. It could be anything.

It could be Alex. 

It might be Alex.

 

 

They go to Toronto together, to mellow coffee houses and sweet shops. Alex doesn’t let Colton pay for their hotel room, but Colton manages to get away with paying for their food anyways. 

Alex takes him back to King City, shows him the neighbourhood he grew up in, and Colton looks at his face and feels like he’s being clued in to something private. 

Everything about King City is quiet and beautiful. 

“I love it,” Colton says and his cheeks feel warm when Alex chuckles down at his hands. 

 

 

There’s an eastern redbud in Alex’s front lawn. Its leaves are pink and shaped like little hearts, and Colton doesn’t think he’s ever seen one up close in person. 

“Planted it years ago,” Alex explains, petting the trunk. He looks just as fascinated by it. “Still remember trying to climb it as a kid.”

“Wow,” Colton laughs out. “I mean, it’s pretty.” 

“Yeah.” Alex looks up at him with something welcoming swirling in his eyes and Colton holds his gaze until he trusts himself not to sway into his space.

Alex kisses him, then. 

Up on the balls of his feet, a hand on Colton’s chest, and Colton’s hit with a wave of shock before his lips coax him into kissing back. 

It’s soft and easy and careful enough that Colton’s almost scared to hold Alex in his arms. 

“You know I like you, right?” 

Colton shakes his head. “I didn’t—I thought—“ 

Alex kisses his jaw, the corner of his lips, like he’s tracing affection all across his skin. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I know.”

Colton nods, but he doesn’t think he understands everything. He might not ever.

He breathes and keeps his eyes on what matters. The world can wait.


End file.
